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Volume 15, May 2015
e-ISSN: 2321-1814, ISBN (Print): 978-1-62951-974-6
Design of a Bioreactor
Landfill for Delhi City
Aromal Thampan1, Avisek Mukherjee2
aromal.iitr@gmail.com
Abstract
In India, dumping grounds or landfill areas are mainly open low-lying areas in the cities.
The Municipal solid wastes consist of wastes from domestic, agricultural, commercial
sources and construction debris. Municipal solid waste is generally dumped in landfill
areas without segregating it into biodegradable and non-biodegradable. These organic
components in the municipal refuse results in methane formation under anaerobic
condition.
A Bioreactor landfill is a landfill where the decomposition of wastes occurs rapidly by
providing optimum moisture to the wastes, by recirculation of leachate. An overview of
the bioreactor landfill is studied in this paper. Further a bioreactor landfill is designed
for the municipal solid waste of Delhi city, taking into consideration of the existing
rules and regulations and the design and operational issues.
Keywords
Bioreactor landfill; Municipal solid waste; Methane; leachate; refuse; biodegradable;
anaerobic.
Introduction
Land filling of municipal solid wastes is the major means of waste management processes
practised in India. It has been concluded from early studies that a total of 4060 million
tons of Methane is emitted from landfills and old waste deposits worldwide, accounting for
approximately 1112% of the global anthropogenic methane emissions. This ranks
landfills third after rice paddies (60 million tons per year) and ruminant livestock (85
million tons per year [4]. Methane is regarded as one of the most important GHGs
because its global warming potential has been estimated to be more than 20 times of that
of carbon dioxide and atmospheric methane concentration has been increasing in the
range of 12% per year. [8].
1
2
Page 1
Preliminary Data
In point of the view made in the introduction, a Bioreactor landfill has been designed in
this project for the Delhi city.
Site description
Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory of Delhi, is the second most popular
metropolitan city of India after Mumbai. With a population of 16.3 million in 2011, it is also
the eighth most popular metropolitan city in the world. The annual mean temperature of
Delhi is 25 0C and the monthly mean varies from 13 0C to 32 0C. The average annual
rainfall is 750 mm with monsoon seasons ranging from June to September [8].
4000000
3000000
2000000
Days
1000000
0
1
47
93
139
185
231
277
323
Waste Generation
The quantity of municipal solid wastes generated in Delhi has been consistently rising
over the years. The total average waste generation is about 8000 tons per day. Land
filling is the main means of waste management in Delhi. At present there are 3 landfills at
Bhalaswa (7.2 hectare), Okhla (7.2 hectare) and Gazipur (28 hectare) in which the
Gazipur land fill site life span ends in 2014 [7]. The waste generation data is plotted for
Delhi as in figure below.
Cumulative
Wastes
Days
Page 2
Basic data:
Location
Delhi
Waste Generation
There are 3 landfills in Delhi, assuming equal distribution of waste. Therefore waste
reaching one landfill per day =
8000/3
=
2666.667 tons per day.
Design life
Topography
Flat ground
Subsoil
Water table
[1]
Contents
Pape
r
Textil
e
Leathe
r
Plasti
c
Meta
l
Glas
s
Percentag
e by
weight (%)
6.6
4.0
0.6
1.5
2.5
1.2
Ash,
Fine
earth &
other
51.5
Compos
table
matter
31.78
C25H40O16N
Design
Estimation of Landfill Capacity
Current Waste generation per day,
8000 tons
10000 tons
(T)
0.5*365*5*(10000-8000)
=
16.425 * 106 tons.
(T1)
T/3
5.475 * 106
T1/0.5
10.95 * 106
(W)
tons.
(Vw)
m3
0.1 * Vw
1.095 * 106
m3
Total volume required for components of liner system and of cover system (assuming 1.5
m thick liner system), (VC)
=
K * Vw
=
Aromal Thampan, Avisek Mukherjee,
Design of a Bioreactor Landfill for Delhi City.
1.369 * 106
m3
(For landfill height of 10-20 m, K value is taken as 12% of the total waste volume and for a
height of 10 m, K value can be taken as 25% (USEPA., 2010).
First estimate of landfill capacity,
liner and cover systems
(Ci)
12.32 * 106
m3
Rectangular in plan
(Length: Width = 2:1) Primarily
above ground level, partly below
ground level
Area Restrictions
Nil
10 m
Area Required
(12.32 * 106) / 10
12.32 * 105 m 2
780 m * 1560 m
Assuming 30 % of the total area for infrastructural facilities other than land filling area,
Total Area required (Including infrastructural facilities) =
16.016 * 105 m 2
895 m * 1790 m
The actual land filling section and plan is evaluated on the basis of the following
assumptions
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
Landfill Phases
Active life of landfill
5 years
one year
Number of phases
Landfill capacity / 5
12.32 * 106 / 5
2.464 * 106 m 3
Page 4
350 m * 700 m
365
A single cell waste will be filled in a day. Thus by one year one whole phase gets
completed.
Volume of one cell
6750.685 m2
3375.34 m2
42
84
(approx.)
Check:
Cell volume
m3
42* 84 *2
2.575 * 106
Volume of
one phase
(approx.)
Design of Liner
A composite liner is the minimum requirement for a Bioreactor landfill. It may be a single
composite or a double composite liner. Here a single composite liner is provided for
design consisting of a Compacted Clay Liner (CCL) and a Geomembrane.
A composite liner consists of 2 components.
i.
ii.
Page 5
Moisture requirement
The incoming fresh municipal solid wastes will be having a moisture content of 10 % - 25
% by weight. For accelerated decomposition of waste in Bioreactor landfills, this moisture
content has to be increased to an optimum moisture content of 35 % - 45 % [12]. This
requirement is satisfied by the recirculation of leachate into the waste mass. Moreover the
recirculation is done by considering several factors during the lifetime of landfill. This
includes the total precipitation received, the losses such as evaporation and seepage etc.
Here the moisture content of the incoming waste is taken as 15 %.
The optimum moisture content for accelerated decomposition of waste
45%
So, each cell will be requiring additional 30% moisture which has to be supplied.
Precipitation data:
The average monthly rainfall precipitation data for Delhi from the year 1956 to 2000 was
collected.
Month
January
February
March
April
May
June
Standard Deviation
5
5
3
8
8
15
Page 6
July
August
September
October
November
December
216.8
247.6
133.8
15.4
6.6
15.2
59
68
37
4
2
4
600
400
200
0
1
62
123
184
245
306
Precipitation (mm)
Daily Rainfall
Data(mm)
Daily
Rainfall
Data(mm)
Time (Days)
Page 7
30000
Days
20000
10000
0
Cumulative
Rainfall
data(mm)
1
42
83
124
165
206
247
288
329
Cumulative Rainfall
Cumulative Rainfall
Days
0.022 gal/day/ft2
0.022 * 0.0408
(780 m * 350 m)
273000 m2
219.912 m3 / day
In one phase 9 cells (approx.) can be arranged. Along each layer of cells one pipe will be
collecting the discharge. Therefore the above discharge can be drained out by 9 numbers
of pipes.
Diameter of HDPE pipes provided
40 mm, 9 Numbers
Page 8
Recirculation of leachate
25000
20000
15000
10000
5000
0
Water
Remaining
1
62
123
184
245
306
Moisture Remaining
Moisture
Required
344.2622 kg of CH4
waste generated.
/tonne of
generated
=
688.52 + 856.550
2401.62
tonnes
day.
Page 9
Cover Material
Cover material is an essential element of land filling operations. A daily cover material has
to be provided above the waste at the end of the day after each cell has been completed.
A daily cover of 30 cm of soil layer is provided for the design. Daily cover should ideally
be permeable to allow water to pass through thereby preventing ponding/perched water
build-up. The total volume of daily cover used up for this design would be approximately
1.095 * 106 m 3 of soil and for a single phase would be almost 219000 m3 of soil material.
Intermediate cover refers to placement of material (minimum 300mm if soil used)
for a period of time prior to restoration or prior to further disposal of waste. Intermediate
cover should significantly reduce rainfall infiltration. Here an intermediate cover of 60 cm
is provided.
Alternative Final Covers (AFCs) are best preferred for Bioreactor landfills. Since the
bioreactors need moisture, Alternative final covers can be designed and constructed in
such a way as to control all types of infiltrations as required by the landfill. During
monsoons also, this final covers can allow allowable infiltration as well as shut sown
infiltration if precipitation is too high [2].
A 0.60m thick gas collection layer comprising of gravel. (stone dust with no fines).
A 0.60m thick barrier layer. (sandy silt + 5 % bentonite)
0.30 m thick surface layer of local top soil for vegetative growth [6].
Page 10
Conclusion
The Bioreactor landfills are successful in gaining attention in the field of Solid Waste
Management and are becoming a next level to the engineered sanitary landfills. The
potential for these landfills for accelerated waste stability and the time for land recovery
are the view points. A Bioreactor landfill can stabilize the whole waste within 5-10 years
compared to 30-60 years in case of convectional landfills. For a developing country like
India, where population growth is far beyond controlling, and availability of land is a big
issue, the implementation of Bioreactor landfills can really help in the land controlled and
an efficient Waste Management system.
An Anaerobic Bioreactor landfill is designed here according to Indian waste conditions for
Delhi, for the year 2011 data. It shows that the total area required for land filling of the 1/3
rd of the total waste of Delhi (incoming waste to this landfill) is around 12.32 * 105 m 2.
Almost 2500 tonnes of landfill gas per day can be generated from this system. A single
composite liner of thickness 1.5 m, consisting of a compacted clay liner (60 cm) and a
geomembrane (40-80 mm) is provided for the design. The total volume of material
required for cover material would be around 1.095 * 106 m 2. All necessary infrastructures
are also provided and the total area of landfill including infrastructural facilities would be
Aromal Thampan, Avisek Mukherjee,
Design of a Bioreactor Landfill for Delhi City.
Page 11
References
[1]
Warith, M.A. (March 2003), Solid Waste Management ; New Trends in Landfill
Design, Emirates Journal for Engineering Research, Vol 8, Issue 1, pp. 61-70.
[2]
[3]
[4]
American Gupta, S., Choudhary, N., and Alappat, B.J. ( September 2007),
Page 12
[7]
Lelieveld, J., Crutzen, Paul. J., and Dentener, Frank. J., Changing concentration,
lifetime and climate forcing of atmospheric methane., Tellus (1998), 50B, PP.128
150.
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
2015 by the Authors. Licensed by HCTL Open, India.
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